Darius understood without my having to explain.

He never pushed.

He made the appointments and packed the lunches and rebuilt the trust documents and asked for nothing back, and he let me arrive at believing in him again on my own schedule, which was slow.

And I did arrive.

That was its own small miracle — that after everything, I found I could still trust, could still let a person’s care be only care, could still build a life on the belief that the people at my table meant me well.

Ottoline had tried to poison that too, the deepest thing, the ability to be loved without fear.